Further to yesterday’s Radio Ulster discussion…

Further to that discussion on Seven Days yesterday, I got the impression that what happened last week in London hasn’t quite hit through to people yet… By way of illustrating that the investment in comment rather than reporting fact this is not just a Northern Ireland problem, Dizzy recounts an illuminating conversation with a Whitehall editor… H/T Iain… NOTE: in circumstances like these, you do not require access to parties to break news… St might serve some politicians who think ‘tough love’ is the only way to deal with media miscreants instead to establish relationships with a range of people who increasingly know more about what you are doing than you appear to know yourself…

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About Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

We clearly have a difference over what we consider a story/scoop. Shock, horror, the British prime minister’s gofers spend much of their time smearing the bosses opponents, some scoop.

If i have a criticism of the mainstream columnists, it is they all sing from a similar songbook. I find it amusing that they have still not caught up with their readers. I always thought a columnists job was to influence their readers, not lag ten feet behind.

The problem is they are in the same neo-liberal trench as their masters and the politicians, whereas the mass of the UK and Irish people jumped out long ago, after finding it a damp cold and unwelcoming place.

A prime example of the non story story is the coverage generated by companies such as Paddy Power and others over novelty bets. 100-1 that, eg, the next Pope will be Irish or, a more recent example, giving odds on who’s going to be the next chief constable even though Paddy Power, I would hazard a guess, has no baldy notion about who’s going to be the next chief constable. The fact that he quotes odds on ‘the betting’ generates a news story which is reported in some print media with breathless excitement, giving plenty of newspace to Paddy Power, free advertising in other words.

Blogs aren’t immune to this either as we have a thread on this very theme provided by Pete Baker on slugger….

oneill

NOTE: in circumstances like these, you do not require access to parties to break news

No, you don’t. You do require however loads of time to do the necessary research/nit-picking/dirt-digging (eg Guido) or the IT expertise (eg Dizzy) to access and understand the myriad of different systems, sites and whereever else the information is buried on.

The vast majority of us are pumping out our posts during the coffee break or when the boss has popped out to the toilet and simply haven’t got those resources to move up to the next plate.
So 99.99% of political blogging in the UK and probably 99.999% of the blogging in NI will remain as it is at the minute, which is in a state not very mould-breaking or threatening to the elites to be honest.